Abstract
This paper revolves around the question of how we can phenomenologically interpret the application of the mirror metaphor to intersubjectivity. To answer this question, we must first clarify the phenomenon of the mirror itself, and specifically its function and how the objects it reflects appear, as well as the modes of self- and other-relations that it makes possible. We can compare these properties with the characteristics of intersubjectivity in order to find out how sound or significant the mirror metaphor is here. Our goal then is not to show whether the mirror metaphor is a ‘correct’ or ‘false’ descriptive determination of intersubjectivity. Redeeming the metaphor in the phenomenological sense would require that we elucidate which aspects of the mirror phenomenon permit an analogy with the Other and which do not. If the metaphor were to conform perfectly with the analogy, and if one could transform it into a verifiable and complete description, it would no longer be a metaphor. In other words, metaphors live by the dialectic of their resolvable and irresolvable descriptive elements. We must preserve this tension in our phenomenological analysis while bracketing any overarching assessments of the metaphor. Only when we have worked out the individual aspects of the core of the matter, can we examine the adequacy of its application to the sphere of intersubjectivity. In the following, then, our task is a critique of the metaphor, in the sense of unpacking its specific phenomenal features, on the basis of which we may then discuss whether or not we can carry out a metaphorical translation of those features. Indeed, even though the metaphor is such a prominent one, the paper demonstrates its limitations when it comes to determining social relations.
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Notes
All translations of German scholarly literature are mine, unless noted otherwise.
In philosophy this change in the understanding of the mirror emerges with particular clarity in Leibniz’s thought, especially in his arguments against Locke’s thesis concerning the passivity of human understanding. See Albus (2001: 163).
We can find a philosophical critique of catoptric self-supervision and self-transparency already in the works of Rousseau, who recounts the history of human reflectivity as the history of the Fall, as the ever-increasing removal from nature and its attendant self-alienation. See Konersmann (1991: 56).
This holds at any rate for (non-tilted) flat mirrors, and we are limiting our account just to these. Uneven mirrors distort the mirror image, e.g., a shaving mirror (a concave mirror) yields an enlarged mirror image, while convex inversion mirrors allow one to survey a larger area (for instance, a precarious intersection) in a smaller mirror image.
“Even a new mirror does not smooth out old wrinkles,” as an old German saying goes (“auch neuer spiegel glättet alte runzeln nicht,” Grimm and Grimm 1854ff.: vol. 16, 2230).
As another saying has it: “there is no mirror more faithful than an old friend” (“es giebt keinen treuern spiegel als einen alten freund,” Grimm and Grimm 1854ff.: vol. 16, 2234).
The mirror has also long been a metaphor for philosophical activity generally, as an image of the reflectivity of thought. On the critique of the mirror metaphor in the modern understanding of philosophy, see Rorty 1979: 12: “The picture which holds traditional philosophy captive is that of the mind as a great mirror, containing various representations—some accurate, some not—and capable of being studied by pure, nonempirical methods. Without the notion of the mind as mirror, the notion of knowledge as accuracy of representation would not have suggested itself”.
“[…] vorschriften enthalten, sich in der andacht zu üben, sein gewissen zu prüfen” (Grimm and Grimm 1854ff.: vol. 16., 2236f.).
Velázquez, Las Meninas (1656), oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait (1434), oil on wood, National Gallery, London.
Merleau-Ponty famously minted the term ‘intercorporeality’ [intercorporéité] for the sphere of this type of mutual encounter. See Merleau-Ponty (1964: 168).
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Acknowledgements
I thank the participants of the symposium on “Visibility, Embodiment, and Empathy” (Harvard University, March 27–28, 2015) for their engaged discussion and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. I also especially thank Patrick Eldridge for his linguistic help.
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Breyer, T. Human Mirrors: Metaphors of Intersubjectivity. Hum Stud 41, 457–474 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-018-9461-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-018-9461-0